Arrest That Babysitter!

…A West Michigan woman says the state is threatening her with fines and possibly jail time for babysitting her neighbors’ children.

 

Lisa Snyder of Middleville says her neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of her home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

 

The Department of Human Services received a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home. DHS contacted Snyder and told her to get licensed, stop watching her neighbors’ kids, or face the consequences.

 

“It’s ridiculous.” says Snyder. “We are friends helping friends!” She added that she accepts no money for babysitting.

 

Mindy Rose, who leaves her 5-year-old with Snyder, agrees. “She’s a friend… I trust her.”

[S]ince when do the authorities even have a reason to look in to such matters? And where do we get people like the stoolie who called the cops? And how did a government agency get the right to issue fines and threats before a trial and conviction? For all our alleged efforts to ensure free choice and privacy, it sure seems to me that our area of liberty is shrinking.

 

In a free society, all is permitted unless there is a specific law against it. The mark of a tyrannical society is that nothing may happen unless the government permits it - right now, for this kind lady to watch the neighbor’s kids for a few minutes she’ll either have to get permission from the government, or wait to see if the government passes a law allowing normal, human interaction...

 

 [T]here are a [now] myriad reasons for the authorities to arrest and/or harass us in our daily lives....Which of us, stopped by the authorities, could really say we feel confident that justice will be done? Someone I know had a summary judgment placed against him in a civil suit - he had never been served; the plaintiff had put a notice in the newspaper, which this person never reads, and that was considered sufficient notice by a judge…and then it was in to efforts at wage garnishment. Someone could denounce any of us, anonymously, and the way things are working out, we’d have to prove our innocence. And that is only if we’re given the chance - there’s no indication in the linked story that the lady was charged with a crime and then convicted by a jury…nope, just an anonymous denunciation, a drum head investigation by bureaucrats, and then “watch it, slave, your masters are after you!”.